My Florida Tropical Garden

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been busy maintaining the garden with the lack of rain, controlling a wild rat problem, and my grandparents came to visit Florida for a couple weeks. I've also been doing some bass and catfishing, see my fishing blog at http://average-fisherman.blogspot.com

Milkweed Bugs, I wrote about these bugs a couple months ago. The tropical milkweed planted next to the bird bath was infested with these suckers for awhile. The plant was showing alot of damage, so much the butterflies wouldn't even touch it. Using insecticidal soap did little to nothing, there were just too many milkweed bugs ranging from baby nymphs to adults. Fortunately milkweed is a resilient plant and grows back very fast. So I just chopped off all the stems and bagged them in a ziploc bag. The milkweed bugs tend to cluster around the very tops of the stems where new growth would occur. Once all the stems were cut and bagged, there were no more milkweed bugs on the plant. Within weeks, the milkweed bounced back and now it looks great.

Gulf Fritillary butterflies are very popular here and almost always sighted when I walk outside in the garden. They love the Candy Cane Zinnias, Yellow Lantana, Marigolds, and of course the Passiflora (gulf frit host plant). I only have one potted passiflora, and it's loaded with caterpillars and eggs. In fact, as I'm looking outside now I can see two Gulf Frit butterflies flirting with each other in the air. The Monarchs are still hanging around, about 1 or 2 a day seems to be the average. There was a Giant Swallowtail visiting a Yellow Lantana for awhile but I haven't seen any swallowtails in the last couple of weeks. I even planted some dill and parsley to attract Black Swallowtail caterpillars but no luck so far.

Happy Halloween to everyone! =)

Not much going on in the garden for me so I haven't been posting much. The weather has been extremely dry though, been several weeks since our last good rain. On the positive side, it's been a nice 60 degrees in the evenings so being outdoors at night has been pleasant.

I am starting to notice ALOT of seed pods on flowering plants. I'm collecting seeds from my zinnia's, Asclepias curassavica (tropical milkweed), and Datura metel (double purple devil's trumpet). Interested to check the seed viability next spring when I get ready to plant these varieties again.

This will probably my final post this year on Monarchs as well. I've successfully released 60 Monarch butterflies this year, 35 females and 25 males. I'm most likely done with Monarch raising for the year since it's getting cooler outside, so I'll just start again next spring.

Today marks a milestone in my personal monarch butterfly release. I set free a female and male monarch this afternoon and watched them fly gracefully into some tree cover. The male monarch emerged today and was the 30th successful monarch I've raised this year from caterpillar to butterfly. It's been alot of work, but I'm happy with this accomplishment so far. Proud that I can help the Monarch species, especially if they continue to visit our butterfly garden this year.

The local Monarchs are still laying eggs on the milkweed. The weather is still hot and humid, with a few spotty showers in the late afternoons. There's no shortage of milkweed in our yard either, with about 10 healthy plants providing enough food for the amount of caterpillars I'm rearing.

On another non-gardening note, last night I caught a 3 lb. channel catfish off the St. Johns river bank. It's my personal best so far. =)

We arrived home from vacation on the evening of July 31. What a long drive from Indiana to Florida, at least the kids did well on the roadtrip. When we left, I had to bring 2 Monarch chrysalis that haven't emerged yet. The two female monarchs emerged just fine and were later released in Indiana at my grandparents house. They were immediately attracted to her large purple coneflowers, and one stayed on the flowers for several hours. The photo below was taken from my iphone.



At a rest area along the way in Georgia, we stopped for lunch and found this huge gardner spider in the trees. I've never seen a gardner spider this big, it had to be around 3 inches long.



Here's a photo of my grandmas' eggplant growing nicely from a topsy turvey.



While visiting one of the grandparents in Indiana, a stray kitten came running to us wanting all sorts of attention. My sister (who is a sucker for homeless cats lol) brought it home with her of course. For being an outdoor cat, the kitten was litter trained quickly and slept most of the way home in the car. The kitten was appropriately named Indy.

I will be leaving on vacation in a couple days from July 22 - July 30, going to Indiana to pickup my son and visit family. In the meantime, I'm trying to finish up my remaining Monarchs, there are 12 chrysalis left. I purchased a 24" high net castle enclosure from LiveMonarch.org, a not-for-profit foundation in Florida. They also have a professional sanitizing spray that actively kills all bacteria, mold, mildew, single cell organisms, and even viruses. If your ready to raise a bunch of caterpillars, these are essential products to own.

Here are some interesting resources about rearing Monarchs:

Live Monarch - Free Milkweed Seed / Rearing Supplies
http://www.livemonarch.org/

Monarch Watch - Forum and Online Store
http://www.monarchwatch.org/

Monarch Butterfly Migration Tracking Project
http://www.learner.org/jnorth/monarch/

Gardenweb Butterfly Garden Message Board
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/butterfly/

Found (2) more Monarch eggs outside so now a total of 9 caterpillars I'm caring for. One formed a chrysalis last night and will be emerging in 9-10 days. Here's some fun facts about the Monarch butterfly!

- The milkweed plant is the only thing the larvae will eat. Did you know that milkweed plants are being cut down to make roads and houses and the monarch butterfly population is decreasing because of this?

- Eastern populations winter in Florida, coastal areas of Texas, and Mexico. They return to the north in spring. Monarch butterflies follow the same migration patterns every year.

- Not all monarchs migrate back north. It appears that the monarchs that migrate to Florida may just stay there, making this population what is known as a “sink population".

- Did you know that monarch butterflies are poisonous? They won’t harm humans, but the chemicals from the milkweed plant that they eat when they are in the larvae stage builds up inside of them and gives them a poisonous defense against predators like frogs, birds, mice and lizards.

- Did you know that monarch butterflies go through four generations each year? The first three generations hatch from their cocoon state (also known as the pupa or chrysalis state) and live for up to six weeks, but the fourth generation continues to live on for up to six or eight months so that they can migrate to a warmer climate, hibernate, and then start a new first generation in the spring time.

Here's my video I wanted to share of the Monarch Butterfly I raised. The papertowel it's walking on is soaked with sugar-water. I only kept it for a couple days as I wanted to release it outside so it could continue it's natural cycle.

It only took a couple days for the Monarch caterpillar to form a chrysalis on June 5th. Then just 9 days later, a new Monarch butterfly emerged from the chrysalis. To feed to butterfly, I made a sugar-water solution and soaked a piece of papertowel. After a few days of enjoying the butterfly, it was released so it could continue it's lifecycle. Below are pictures of the Monarch chrysalis and butterfly feeding off of the papertowel.

During the past week or so, I've been finding more and more Monarch eggs and tiny caterpillars on our Milkweed plants. I also noticed alot of them disappearing after a few days, which I think is caused from their natural predators like spiders, wasps, and lizards. It's not uncommon for less than 10% of them to survive. So in an effort to help out the Monarch population, I collected some more eggs so I can hatch and raise them to an adult butterfly. Right now I have 7 caterpillars. Three of them just hatched today. The Monarch caterpillar cycle only takes about 2 weeks so it's amazing to watch how fast they grow in a single day. The last picture posted here is one I took of a Monarch laying an egg on the underside of a leaf. I was just planting some more Milkweed plants one day and this Monarch was flying around me the whole time.

Today I found a gorgeous Monarch caterpillar chewing on our Butterfly Weed plant. First time I've seen one of these caterpillars in our garden because they are only attracted to Milkweed. The Butterfly weed I found it on was just purchased this year. I'll raise this one and post updates. He's already pretty large so it shouldn't take too long before it forms a chrysalis. Once it forms a chrysalis, it's only about 10 days before an adult Monarch butterfly emerges. Most adult Monarch butterflies can live from 2 to 6 weeks! I took this picture below to show you the size and stunning color of this eye catching caterpillar. Simply amazing